When building a resilient IT infrastructure to deliver availability to the business few of us have the luxury of starting from scratch. Instead, most IT environments are a patchwork of physical and virtual technology, shiny new kit and ancient legacy systems.

As our research* showed, lack of dedicated budget to invest in availability is a distinct challenge for a third of all respondents but particularly acute for IT directors in the UK (38%). This is compounded by a shortage of other resources such as specialist skills, which was an issue for a third of interviewees.

However, this is not an insurmountable problem. Not all systems and applications are equally critical and prioritising the most important can bring disproportionate benefits. So the first step in the journey to ICT availability should be to map all systems and identify the most important in terms of customer expectations and employee productivity. Any systems that do not directly impact on those two central concerns can be tackled when funds and resources allow.

Find out about the other milestones en route to becoming an available enterprise by downloading ‘Delivering the Available Enterprise’ now!

*Research conducted by Vanson Bourne in July 2012 involving interviews with 450 IT directors in organisations with 250 to 1,000 employees in the UK (250 interviewees), France (100) and the Nordics (100) across a wide range of business sectors.